01Case study · Fleets & logistics
Fitting a full depot behind an existing sanctioned load
Adding buses meant either upgrading the connection — eighteen months and substantial capex — or making the existing one go further.
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Buses charging overnight
1
Sanctioned connection, unchanged
4 hrs
Departure window every morning
The deployment
Profile
- Vehicles
- Electric buses on fixed route schedules
- Charging window
- Overnight, with a fixed morning departure sequence
- Constraint
- Sanctioned load below simultaneous full-power demand
The problem
What was in the way
- 01The fleet grew faster than the electrical connection, and a sanction upgrade meant a long lead time and significant capital.
- 02Uncontrolled charging tripped the site during the first hour after the fleet returned, when every bus plugged in at once.
- 03Drivers should not be making payments at a depot, but energy still had to be attributed per vehicle for cost-per-kilometre reporting.
- 04Off-peak electricity was materially cheaper and nothing was exploiting it.
The approach
What was actually done
Each step names the mechanism rather than the outcome, so you can judge whether it would transfer to your situation.
Per-EVSE ceilings enforced on the charger
Each charge point received a default charging profile in amps, sent as a TxDefaultProfile and re-applied automatically after every boot — so a unit power-cycled by depot staff came back with the limit intact rather than at factory maximum.
Shared capacity rather than first-come-first-served
Available site capacity is distributed across active sessions and returned to the pool as buses complete, so the vehicles still charging speed up rather than the last arrivals being starved.
Tap to charge, no payment leg
RFID authorisation with vehicle and driver groups replaced any payment flow, with a local authorisation list on the chargers so a connectivity blip could not strand the depot.
Cost attribution per vehicle
Every session carries its tag, vehicle and energy, so consumption rolls up per bus and per route and exports into the fleet’s own cost reporting.
The outcome
What changed
- The full fleet charges overnight inside the existing sanction, with the connection upgrade deferred.
- The post-return demand spike is shaped rather than tripped.
- Energy cost is attributable per vehicle, which made cost per kilometre a reportable number rather than an estimate.
- Charging shifted into the cheaper overnight window without anyone managing it manually.
Platform
What was used
Smart charging & load management
Per-connector power limits, default charging profiles and site-level load sharing — enforced on the charger, not just on paper.
RFID & fleet authorisation
RFID and ID-tag management with driver groups, whitelists, per-driver limits and post-paid fleet billing.
Analytics & reporting
Dashboards and exports for energy delivered, session mix, utilisation, downtime and revenue across every level of the network.
Tariffs & pricing plans
Per-kWh, per-minute, flat-fee and time-of-day pricing, with idle fees, driver-group rates and tariff groups across sites.
Would the same approach work for you?
Tell us your constraints and we will say honestly which parts of this transfer and which do not.